used up and weary. Already I feel the tug of living in dreams and memories rather than boldly stepping out into a mutable world. Dealing in words and phrases might add to that feeling, could explain why I long for more mountains. You have to get out and do things if you want to write about the mutable world. I’m far from the first to think escape or answers might be found in the peaks. I’ll climb Pico and see what’s hidden up in the clouds.
it was dark and misty and I was up on Salkantay, backing out of the latrine tent. I tapped its nose with the back of my head, whirled around and saw the ears and the big eyes. It didn’t spit. I never clocked one spitting, that only happens to Captain Haddock. They look too haughty to acknowledge you with spit. I’m used to seeing foundling gloves and soft toys left out on walltop display but the llama is new to me, makes me smile. It pinches me away from the news and the venom, the havoc and tears.
among the new-mown hay. And the birds come out to pick among the cuttings. It’s quiet, I hear the breeze and the trees moving here. I’ll hack out a corner for my lounger and a book table, I’ll drift and read a few chapters and try not to worry about the facts. There are no facts. There’s just determination, hope and grim belief. There’s just me and Ahab, the dream of the Pacific, birdsong and a thousand things to ponder before I cut back the holly bush.
into Mural and you might never find your way out. The figures are there and they call to you, but out of a blizzard of craziness. Six months and longer I’ve been waiting to see it hanging before me, it was more than I’d hoped for. Jung was there too, hiding and chuckling in the glades.
roll down the valley, ten hours of rain and the mountain lurks in the whiteout. But you can never forget it’s there. It’s one of Jung’s islands, massive all the way down to his seafloor of collective myths and memories, a weird and vast spirit symbol. The wood nymphs dart and twist and dance between the tree posts on its slopes, flashes of fire and spark silhouette them. I might see the same figures dancing in the Pollock, some trace of Swiss-born Jung, this mountain, my own Zermatt gazing.
the wind rips your cap away, draws the heat from your face and fingers, pull the very breath out of you. It’s close to 4k up and your lungs are tight, you can already feel that dizzy exuberance you remember from other high places, the opium of the upper atmosphere. This is how mountaineers step off mountains, every last bit of heat stolen from them, wind shrieking and hissing, drunk on the air mixture. I totter to a railing and look out at the foaming air below the cable car station, then run for the lift and the rock tunnels. It’s all Doctor Who research station passageways of steel doors and pipe coil, drips and icicles, bumps and groans from the wind beyond. I shelter in the observation restaurant, feeling queasy and jet-lagged and giddy as I chomp on my rosti.
of snow swirl and furling cloud, it only gives me glimpses of its sharp-cut faces. I’ve watched the weather track between the peaks for days, balcony sprawled, the snow bank ridges change from chalk to rose and black streaks break from the mist. This mountain’s a wonder-of-nature tease, a life’s work of gazing, from my five a.m. wake-up sprint to see it almost clear, just a fig leaf of vapour puff over the last nobble of stark, plate-spawned rock, to the late-afternoon black rains and full vanishing act. The mountain looks nothing like any picture or clip I’ve ever seen. No little box can capture it, no scrap of print or flicker. The mountain is cheek-slappingly mountainish, and like no other. I’d been here five minutes when I knew I’d have to return, sweet inestimable world this is, these time-spat scattered treasures.
in Uncharted 4, though I might have missed them in the jungle dash. I’d like to have seen one flutter and settle on Nate’s shoulder, tropic and big as your hand. But I suspect their flight pattern is too hard to render, the figure of eight drop and dart that sets them apart from birds. There are many things the games can’t give you, not even with the headset VR due out in October. Reasons still to head out into the physical world, to seek your own mountain and press a palm against the pressure-sprung plates of this Earth.
to be free? Free not to pay, say or do, free to be alone and without task and a-wandering? Free to bob on the oceans and end up hunched and fossilized by the trade winds over the formica table, plastic tubs of biscuits and the tang of whisky your reward for your dolphin driftings? What freedom is that, more than that longing to step out, run from things? All freedom fantasy is in shadowy contrast to the brash business of living. Freedom might lie in the glimpses and pauses? You can run or stay, there’s no way of knowing who is the greater fool.
at Aristotle, a spate of barge clouts and bridge-rammings I’ve seen this month, after the wild and whirling rains.
